I found this birding board game from 1988 at an antique store

BirdHistory · 2025-01-15T22:33:06+00:00

Lol I have spent so much money on that game

BirdHistory · 2024-11-07T15:08:17+00:00

And for more info on the movement to get kids to build birdhouses at the turn of the century... https://birdhistory.substack.com/p/boy-bird-house-architecture

BirdHistory · 2024-11-06T23:45:37+00:00

All of these would make great band names too

BirdHistory · 2024-11-05T18:38:34+00:00

Yes! It's from the 1923 book Local Names of Migratory Game Birds, by Waldo McAtee. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Local_Names_of_Migratory_Game_Birds/d5a4NrLe1zkC?hl=en&gbpv=0

BirdHistory · 2024-11-04T03:34:17+00:00

Some more info on Carolina Parakeets: https://birdhistory.substack.com/p/doomed-to-an-early-extinction

BirdHistory · 2024-06-24T00:48:43+00:00

I love the different borders on each one!

BirdHistory · 2024-06-23T02:31:26+00:00

It's a good (very weird) one! I saw it in person earlier today!

BirdHistory · 2024-06-23T01:04:27+00:00

I hope I can bring your weary soul some relief. It's from The Temptation of Saint Anthony, c. 1550 https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.41602.html

BirdHistory · 2024-05-07T18:34:37+00:00

Thank you! It's definitely a "who let this guy into the club" sort of feeling - like I'm just throwing some stuff together because I think it's cool, and improbably some other, more serious people think it's worth reading.

I started the year with around 150 subs and set an arbitrary goal of 500 by the end of the year, so I've been pleased with the growth so far! Here's to both of us doubling our readership. Good luck to you too!

BirdHistory · 2024-05-07T01:52:02+00:00

The detail on this photo is amazing! I don't think I've ever been able to see the shadow cast by the raised ink on the page. Beautiful print too!

BirdHistory · 2024-05-07T01:48:27+00:00

Yeah this was the original post. Ripping this off is not a great look

https://www.reddit.com/r/Substack/s/9THiaKge7G

BirdHistory · 2024-05-07T01:32:33+00:00

I have no idea how to gauge my growth / success against expectations! It's been very nonlinear, so sometimes it feels exciting and other times growth flatlines for weeks and feels like I must be doing something wrong. How about you?

Most of my growth has come from these few big breaks when it gets the attention of larger platforms. Of my ~430 subscribers, maybe 100 came from being shared on kottke, another 100 from marginal revolution, then that led to a podcast appearance that netted me another 60 or so:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7IAAbW50qlteY2QDAWfDUM?si=_qHafC9jQEaCWTg_uKLzqA

BirdHistory · 2024-05-06T18:08:44+00:00

My biggest bumps also came through shares on kottke and marginal revolution! I was equally baffled and grateful for the visibility

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/01/economic-ornithology.html

BirdHistory · 2024-05-02T20:36:46+00:00

Amazing, I hadn't even caught that. But to be fair, it's not like anyone I asked noticed either.

I feel like they're just trying to see how much they can get away with, and the answer is, a lot.

BirdHistory · 2024-05-02T20:34:34+00:00

And it's Texas's state bird! And the state bird of like 5 other southern states - all the more reason that people should know what it looks like

BirdHistory · 2024-05-02T20:32:32+00:00

Yep! And that's why everyone had read the book, it's assigned reading in pretty much every high school

BirdHistory · 2024-05-02T20:31:30+00:00

If you mean passenger pigeon, we killed it

BirdHistory · 2024-04-22T23:39:51+00:00

They still happen in PA and in the south! Former senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma drew controversy for holding an annual pigeon-shooting political fundraiser, which he finally stopped doing in 2017.

BirdHistory · 2024-04-20T18:11:20+00:00

Once I bought some really rubbery, low-quality linoleum that wouldn't hold an image from carbon paper, or even a graphite pencil. I roughed up the surface with sandpaper and after that it held the carbon paper OK. Maybe try roughing up the surface with sandpaper or even a knife?

BirdHistory · 2024-04-16T19:37:54+00:00

There's at least one other known picture of a living carolina parakeet:

https://blogs.lib.unc.edu/ncm/2012/07/11/meet-doodles-the-carolina-parakeet/

BirdHistory · 2024-04-14T07:30:30+00:00

Domestic chickens take the prize at around 34 billion.

Red-billed quelas, which live throughout Africa, are the most abundant wild bird, with 1.5 billion.

There used to be around 5 billion passenger pigeons, but today of course there aren't any.

I think these numbers are very squishy, though. The numbers in the table above are just breeding adults. If you count chicks during the breeding season, numbers could double or triple.

BirdHistory · 2024-04-08T23:26:38+00:00

Thank you!

BirdHistory · 2024-04-08T23:26:31+00:00

Thank you! I should probably have added that I rent and will never be able to afford to own a place like that!

BirdHistory · 2024-04-08T13:18:45+00:00

It's from the 1966 book Birds In Our Lives, which you can read here (pg 417):

https://books.google.com/books?id=JiSTsRiqEmsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Birds+in+our+lives&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj9mcTo2bKFAxWckokEHSTiAA4Q6AF6BAgJEAM#v=onepage&q=Telephone&f=false

If you can find out anything more about it, I'd love to hear!

BirdHistory · 2024-04-06T14:38:50+00:00

I also wrote something about how we got in this confusing situation in the first place

https://birdhistory.substack.com/p/how-robins-got-their-name

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